An Address of the Serbian Chess Federation to International And Local Media

The Serbian Chess Federation feels compelled to address the public, the media and national chess federations this way due to unjust and illegal treatment by the World Chess Federation (FIDE) lasting for a year already.

Namely, at the Assembly meeting held more than a year ago, the Serbian Chess Federation replaced its management and relieved the former president Obren Cetkovic and FIDE and ECU delegate Goran Urosevic of their duties. We notified FIDE Office in Athens of these changes six times (the first time on December 8, 2016 and the last time on August 28, 2017). We asked FIDE to change the details about the president and the delegate on our Federation’s page of FIDE’s website. We delivered all required proof, statements and the decision of the Serbian Business Registers Agency which is, according to Serbian Law on Sports, competent for the registration of sport organizations.

We have not received any reply to first five letters. In our sixth letter we addressed FIDE Deputy President Mr. Makropoulos and the next day we received a reply in which he says, inter alia, that he “understood” that “matters are somewhat unclear” within our Federation and that FIDE will not interfere in our internal matters (!).

It would be great if it could be like that. However, FIDE discussed the situation in our Federation at one of the sessions of its Presidential Board and decided (at least this was stated in its decisions) that FIDE Vice President Mr. Boris Kutin visit our country. Mr. Kutin visited Serbia in May, he was welcomed by the Minister of Sport, but unfortunately he tried to introduce to that meeting the people from the former management whereby he was prevented by people from the Minister’s office. After this visit, during which he was very clearly informed about who is the official representative of our Federation also known to the Ministry of Sport, Mr. Kutin has never informed FIDE Presidency about it in writing (as far as we know).

Of course, we are absolutely aware of the fact that this course of events is supported by people who are in charge of making decisions on this issue – to keep Goran Urosevic, a person close to FIDE and ECU, as the Serbian Chess Federation’s delegate to these organizations at any cost, which is deemed unacceptable by our federation due to a series of financial and other offences committed by Urosevic in the previous period. Among other things, he retained possession of 20 DGT boards for online broadcasting of games that FIDE gave as present to our Federation in November 2016. As the general manager of the European Chess Club Cup in Novi Sad he is responsible for presenting substantially increased profit from this competition in the amount of approximately EUR 50,000 (instead of EUR 17,000 as it was the actual amount, on which the statement will be released soon). Also, we believe that he is behind the false website which was launched for the purpose of misleading the visitors about the activities of the Serbian Chess Federation.

Goran Urosevic (probably) through unknown channels had our official e-mail address serbiacf@verat.net (owned officially by the Serbian Chess Federation) changed on FIDE’s website into serbiachess@gmail.com and this fact has caused big problems to us in our work. This address is under Goran Urosevic’s control and any letters, competition propositions, invitations for meetings, invoices, etc. have been arriving to Goran Urosevic’s private address instead of our official address!

Examples of player transfers from one to another federation are special cases of his wilfulness in decision making. When Tijana Blagojevic, a talented chess player, submitted her request on October 3 to pass from the Montenegro Chess Federation to the Serbian Chess Federation, we were notified by FIDE Office in Elista (October 7) that “until the unclear situation within the Serbian Chess Federation finds a solution, FIDE will not process any transfer requests”. However, when the request submitted by Ivica Samardzic arrived 15 days later for his transfer from our federation to the Croatian Chess Federation, it was immediately approved (!!!) How then to interpret these events but as absolute wilfulness, to avoid using the term – arrogance.

However, there is one element with respect to which FIDE cooperates with us perfectly - H.E. the money. All payments that we made were accepted and executed efficiently with no objections!

In off-record talks with various people close to the FIDE Office or to this world federation’s high officials, we were threatened with “Bulgarian scenario”, and there were attempts to drag us into “political” conflicts within FIDE (in particular before the FIDE Congress in Turkey).

The most recent discouraging act was at ECU General Assembly in Crete. Authorisation sent by our Federation’s acting manager Mr. Ratko Pizurica to ECU so Aleksandra Dimitrijevic could attend ECU GA as a delegate of the Serbian Chess Federation was not accepted but instead we were told that the European Chess Federation considered only the details from FIDE’s website as valid. Having signed himself as Serbian Chess Federation’s delegate to FIDE and ECU, Goran Urosevic stated on the false website of the Serbian Chess Federation that he was our Federation’s delegate to the ECU GA but his statement was denied by ECU Secretary General Mr. Tsozbazoglou in his letter dated December 1, in which he notified us that “none representative of the Serbian Chess Federation signed the ECU General Assembly attendance or voting sheet for delegates thus Serbian Chess federation was not officially present in the meeting on 4th of November”.

So the logical question is: Who is entitled and on what basis to interpret the situation within the Serbian Chess Federation as “unclear”, taking wilful and illegal decisions based on this?

It is no secret that chess in Serbia is burdened by serious internal problems, court disputes and arbitrations, but there is one undisputable rule: a person entered with a competent authority as a legal representative of the Federation must be entered with international institutions as well, and everything else is gross interference in internal matters.

After a year that we have lost while waiting in vain, the Serbian Chess Federation begins the battle for its rights and integrity. We expect assistance by legal experts, media, and national federations as well whom we believe to prefer right and justice to any personal affections.

Комментарии

Good move! The only way to fight FIDE's corrupt management (as no change can be realistically expected from within) - is to go viral and to keep reporting their wrongdoings to the media! Hopefully, Fide will now be under greater pressure to recognize your powers as legitimate!

President Kovind presents Padma Shri to Smt Harika Dronavalli for Sports. She is among the world's top ranked chess players and has lead Indian women squads to several chess championships pic.twitter.com/BDVd3G2PqT

United in our belief that FIDE should support federations, and not federations support FIDE. United in our determination to bring transparency and the rule of law, and to root out cronyism and corruption. #cleanhands4fidepic.twitter.com/fmTqcHgVAT